But the dog needed her.
Kaine was surprised by the return of her innate urge to rescue. She saw something in the dog’s eyes she connected with. The dog was alone. Like her.
Grant was speaking. “She’s the only dog we couldn’t place. Olive is eight years old and a lot of folks don’t want an older dog. Not to mention, she was abused, so she’s shy of male strangers.”
Not exactly a killer, but if she didn’t like strange men, maybe she would at least bark.
“Olive. That’s a cute name.”
“Sure. Black olives. Black lab.” Grant gazed down at Kaine as if waiting for her response. When she didn’t give one, he opened the kennel door. “You’ll want to go slow. Olive doesn’t respond well to fast motions.”
Kaine knew all about that. The same thing could be said of abused women, or women with stalkers. She crouched by Olive and extended her hand, palm down. The dog sniffed it, withdrew, then returned to nudge her.
“She likes you.” Grant’s affirmation brought a tiny flicker of hope to Kaine’s raw emotions.
“I’ll take her.” The words escaped Kaine’s mouth before she had time to consider any further.
Grant snapped the leash onto Olive and scratched the dog behind her ears. “Well, girl, you’ve got a new home.” He gave Kaine a sideways glance, accompanied by a lopsided grin. “Not every dog’s dream to live at Foster Hill House, though.”
Kaine offered a tiny smile back as she passed him, using her key remote to unlock her blue Jetta. She pulled the door open, and Grant knelt beside Olive, her haunches quivering.
“She’s a bit afraid of vehicles,” he explained to Kaine.
“I see that.” Poor thing. Kaine’s hands had only just stopped shaking from the morning’s discovery. She could relate.
Grant lifted Olive and carefully placed her in the back seat of the car. Kaine tried not to notice the way his biceps strained against his shirt. The dog scrambled to get out, so Grant slid in next to her. With a calming hand, he stroked Olive’s black fur.
Kaine leaned against the car and peeked in. “Is she going to be all right?”
“She might get some comfort if you have a blanket or something she can make her own.” Grant scratched behind Olive’s ear. “I’ll just sit here for a minute.”
“I might have one in the trunk.” Kaine spun on her heel and popped the trunk with her key fob. What was she doing? A dog? She wasn’t prepared for this, but her impulsive need for companionship and security wasn’t something she could go back on now. Nor was she certain she wanted to. She pulled out a few boxes of belongings from California and stacked them. A flash of fuzzy navy blue caught her eye. Reaching for the familiar blanket she’d always curled up with in front of the TV back in San Diego, Kaine paused at the quilt beneath it. Leah’s gift. Great-Great-Grandmother Ivy’s quilt. Kaine had forgotten about it in the terror of the day.
She pulled the fuzzy blanket from the trunk and shut the lid.
“Will this work?” Kaine handed the blue blanket to Grant as she hung Ivy’s quilt over her left forearm.
Grant reached out and took the blanket. “Perfect.” His smile revealed a small crease in his left cheek. Kaine looked away from him. She listened to him crooning to Olive as she unfolded the quilt from Leah. It was pieced together with varying squares of material and, while quaint, not particularly beautiful.
“Hey.” The surprise in Grant’s voice drew Kaine’s eyes back to his. Olive nuzzled the blanket on the car seat and then plopped onto it with an oomph. Grant slid from the car, an unspoken question bending his brows. He pushed his glasses up his nose with an index finger as he tipped his head toward the quilt in Kaine’s hands. “That’s, um, some quilt you got there.”
“Oh.” Kaine glanced down at it. “Yeah, it was my great-great-grandmother’s quilt. My sister gave it to me when I left San Diego.”
Grant narrowed his eyes. “Was your great-great-grandmother from around here?”
“I guess. I don’t know much about her really. For that matter, I don’t know much about my ancestry at all, pre-my-grandpa.” Kaine stuck her hand inside the car. Olive sniffed it, then laid her muzzle back on the blanket she’d clearly claimed as hers now.
“What was her name?”
“Ivy Thorpe. She’s in our family Bible, and the family tree ends there. It doesn’t list her married name, even though she obviously did marry. My grandpa’s name, Prescott, is the only family surname I know after that.” Well, that was info dump. But it was obvious there was something about the quilt that captivated him. His eyes kept dropping to it.
Grant cleared his throat. “I see.”
Kaine edged around him and opened the driver’s side door. She tossed the quilt onto the passenger seat out of sight. “You see what?”
Even Kaine could hear the sharpness in her voice. Grant Jesse’s cryptic behavior wasn’t complimentary to the anxiousness still riddling through her.
“It’s nothing,” he said with a shrug, making a pretense of waggling his fingers at Olive. “My mom likes old quilts, and my brother owns an antique shop south of here.”
“Try again.” Kaine crossed her arms. “Why the fascination with my family quilt?”
“It’s true,” Grant went on. “My brother does own an antique shop. My family took vacations to museums growing up, and my dad was a history professor at the university before he and Mom retired in Arizona. We’re all history buffs.”
Kaine raised an eyebrow.
Grant’s jaw muscle twitched and he released a sigh. “Look. Ivy Thorpe is sort of a household name in Oakwood’s history books. And that quilt? It went missing from the museum here in Oakwood back in the sixties. There are pictures of it at the museum.”
Kaine squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. Nope. He was still there with his silly story of a stolen quilt. She didn’t need this right now. Not after this morning. “My sister gave me this quilt. It’s been in my family for years.”
Grant pulled his hands from his jean pockets. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything, really. It just took me by surprise—seeing it.”
Kaine whispered around the lump in her throat, “You’ve no right to question my family, or me.”
Regret filtered across his face. His poignant stare rocked her, as if he was studying her, reading her, seeing inside of her.
“I need to go.” Kaine turned sideways to get into her car, but Grant’s firm grip on her arm stopped her. She looked down at his corded hand, then at him.
“I’m sorry, Kaine. I didn’t mean to offend you. There’s just a lot of history in Oakwood, and your being here sort of stirs it up.”
Kaine shrugged off his hand, his touch burning through her sleeve. “How so?” Did she really want to know?
Grant hesitated, seeming to weigh his words before continuing. “You know the story about the dead woman found at Foster Hill House way back at the turn of the century?”
Kaine nodded, not keen on remembering it. “Joy told me.”